October KTC: Cooking Under Pressure with Joyce and Fernando

Once upon a time, there was a wonderfully creative blog post that was nearly complete. One day, the blog post's author found a bit of free time between diaper changes and feedings, and popped over to put the final touches on the post and to publish it for the KTC kingdom's delight. Then, she realized the blog post draft seemed to have completely disappeared into the ether. She tried using another internet browser, and a few other tricks, and finally accepted the cold, hard truth: her nearly-finished blog post had vanished from the Blogspot website, never to be seen again.

If the above story sounds like the saddest tale you've heard in weeks, allow me to add my hearty agreement! I am soooo disappointed to have lost the entire draft - I'm not sure what Blogspot did with it, but one day it was there, and the next, it wasn't. Very Sad Face!

So here I am, starting over. This post won't be nearly as sparkling and effervescent and humorous and marvelous as the original, I'm sure, but at least we'll have some pics, some recipes, and some fun descriptions of our evening together. She said, grumpily.

So here goes....

On a not so dark and not so stormy October day not too long ago, our maudlin group of Kissers descended on Shawn and Fernando's place for an afternoon of cooking "under pressure." In honor of this day, Joyce and Fernando asked us Kissers to drag out our scary pressure cookers from the farthest reaches of our shelves, basements, and cabinets.

Fernando had prepared his and Shawn's new Fremont digs for the occasion, putting out lots of snacks and tasty beverages.

Fernando wasn't taking this lightly - in spite of having a new(ish) baby in the house, he was prepared! He'd worked with Joyce to formulate a yummy-sounding menu, and had even printed out a couple of recipes on which we would base our pressure cooking experiment.

Joyce arrived just as little Sebastian was waking up from his nap. Ain't he cute?

Joyce had brought a pheasant and rosemary pate to share. Yum!

However, we all got tickled when we looked a little more closely at the ingredient list. Pheasant and rosemary pate...."With pork and duck!" Tee-hee!

Joining our normal group (sans Frank, who had a concert, and Anne, who had an unfortunately-timed stomach bug) on that day were a number of very special guests: our beloved William, Elli, Rick's parents Norm and Carolyn. Carolyn even brought flowers, and they did so much to brighten up that corner of Fernando's home that Fernando has kept fresh flowers in it ever since (Thanks, Carolyn!)!

As we all said our hellos and got settled in, Sebastian chilled out in the pack-and-play, rocking this fabulous camouflage onesie which had been a gift from Anne and Rick.

The evening's menu would consist of:

• Moroccan Lamb Tajine
• Cinnamon Apple Flan with Maple Syrup

We would start with the flan. It would be super easy to put together, but would need time to chill. We got started peeling and slicing apples and pears.

Those would get cooked down with a little cinnamon and maple syrup.

Next up, we blanched and peeled almonds for the tajine. Now, I'm usually lazy, and buy my almonds already blanched, peeled, and often even chopped. I also probably WAY overpay for the convenience. Joyce had visited the bulk foods section of her local PCC and purchased plain old regular almonds. We would peel them ourselves, by golly! For many of us in attendance, this would be a first. We needn't have worried, though - peeling almonds isn't hard to do!

First, you cover the almonds with boiling water and let them sit a spell. I believe the "spell" in question was roughly in length to the time it takes to consume half a glass or so of wine.

Next, you simply stick your hands in and, manually, slip the skins off of each almond. The skins float, and they generally slip off pretty easily. And that's it!

Another supermarket tale: It hadn't occurred to any of us that it might be difficult to put our hands on several pounds of lamb shoulder when we picked up our ingredients. Joyce arrived at the PCC and was informed that they did not, in fact, have in stock several pounds of lamb shoulder. Joyce, undeterred, simply did the practical thing and bought any and every configuration of lamb that the store butcher had in stock.

Easy peasy, right? Well, yes, except when we realized the quantity of bones contained in the meat. We'd have to de-bone the lamb melange before cooking--quite an onerous task. Rick's mom Carolyn stepped right up the task, and make short work of all those bones. Don't get in her way!

Pretty soon we realized how much meaty goodness still remained on the bones, and we decided to put them in a skillet to render the fat, which we figured would be a nice flavor addition to our tajine. Here they are, ready to brown - even those bones look tasty!

Meanwhile, we put some prunes in to soak and soften. Oops, I mean some "dried plums."

We chopped a bunch of onions...

Sebastian contemplated when he'd be old enough to wield a tasting spoon...

We made a savory spice paste with cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and garlic, and slathered the deboned lamb with it...

 The bones finished browning...They'd be a great doggie gift for someone's lucky pooch!

Damian took a moment to share some tummy time and a few cooking tips with Sebastian...

Then, it was time to mix up the custard for the flan. Eggs, yolks, and sugar...

It was time to begin cooking the flan. We assembled individual servings in small ramekins, layering the cooked fruit in the bottom and covering with the custard.

Rick carefully added the ramekins to the bottom of two of the pressure cookers, stacking a single ramekin in a second layer above the first layer in the pan.

Rick's dad Norm observed...

We were ready to cook the flan! While it simmered happily away, we hung around and chatted a bit...

 

This was so exciting! Our flans were ready, and we waited impatiently to be able to open the pressurized pans.

HOWEVER...One thing we hadn't counted on was that the water at the bottom of the pan would splash around when it boiled and spoil the equilibrium of the setup.

Flan goo was all over the bottom of the pan, and the top ramekin had taken a tumble, and was none too lovelier for its effort - Eeeek!

For the second round, we learned our lesson. We re-read the recipe and saw we had missed a step - we hadn't covered the ramekins in aluminum foil before cooking. We tried again...

...and we enjoyed much better results this time...

We popped the custard cups into the fridge to chill, and turned our attention to the lamb, which had been bathing it its spice rub for a couple of hours.

We sauteed a mountain of onions and added the meat to brown, then removed everything to prepare for deglazing the pan.

Next, the whole shebang went back into the pan with some aromatics and was cooked at high pressure for about half an hour. While it cooked, we had more chat time! Which, as you know, really means more drinking time!

 

While we chatted and sipped, we took bets as to how many butts could fit into our kitchen...We're off to a good start here, don't you think?

As dinnertime neared, we toasted our recently-peeled almonds and drained the prunes. Both would garnish our lamb tajine, which would be served over rice.

We set the table, and Shawn realized with dismay that when they downsized to this townhome, she'd given away more placemats than she thought she had - we didn't have enough to go around! A quick-thinking Kisser (I don't remember who, y'all!) stepped up with the great idea to use a pair of cheerfully-colored tea towels as makeshift placemats. They worked quite nicely!

Meg had brought some special wine to share with us...We opened it up to let it breathe, and finished setting the table.

Tension mounted as we impatiently waited to unlock the lid. Here, we helped speed up the process using a little cool water.

Jackpot! When we finally opened up the pot, this is what we found...Yum!

We spooned this delicious, tender mess out over a waiting bed of brown rice...

And topped said mess with the aforementioned almonds and prunes...Doesn't it look tasty?

A final sprinkling of sesame seeds finished off the dish - what a beauty!

We all greedily sat down to eat (save Sebastian, who patiently hung out in the Pack-and-Play while we ate)...

Mmmmmmmm......!!

It was so tender - the lamb fell apart with barely a touch after a mere half-hour in the pressure cooker! We were very impressed. Next, it was time to try our flan...Here, Fernando demonstrates how to unmold our teensy custard cups:

Gorgeous! And super yummy!

And.....there you have it! We cooked under pressure, and it was a success! Stay tuned for a summary of our recent business meeting in November, and we'll look forward to seeing all of you on December 13th Sunday, December 16th (nice catch, Anne!) at Meg's place for our cookie bake extravaganza! As a reminder if you are already panicking about what the heck to do with all those leftover cookies: A couple of years ago, I donated a bunch of our leftover cookie goodies to a senior center in Pike Market - they were happy to receive them!

See y'all soon, Kissers - and apologies again for the delay. Also apologies for any typos or errors...I don't dare to wait for time to edit before I publish this thing!